Our Vision

Engineering Bacterial Blight Resistance in Rice

Rice is the poor man’s staple food. 90% of rice farmers are smallholders who produce rice for their own food security. Even small yield decreases can threaten their basic food security. Crop yield is highly dependent on the healthy plants. Bacterial blight disease is one of the major biological constraints of rice production, because it causes up to 70% yield losses.

We aim to achieve significant yield increases for smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia by providing resistant rice varieties that can be introgressed with local elite lines.

To do so, we received a $US 6 million Grand Challenges Exploration grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop blight-resistant rice varieties in a consortium of universities and leading CGIAR centres. These resistant rice varieties will be available as a free resource for rice breeders in developing countries who can introgress them in local elite varieties.